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The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread

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pipelineaudio said:
East, I'm in the pandemic "hotspot"
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Don’t take this as a challenge; it is an honest question. The numbers I’ve seen online at the NY Times, etc. seem to indicate that Hawaii is actually doing well in reducing “r”, numbers of new cases, and deaths compared to many other states. Of course rates of testing influence the first two, but deaths is a fairly hard number. What sources do you have that indicate Hawaii’s is actually a disastrous response? Are you referring specifically to Oahu?
 
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Giordano said:
Don’t take this as a challenge; it is an honest question. The numbers I’ve seen online at the NY Times, etc. seem to indicate that Hawaii is actually doing well in reducing “r”, numbers of new cases, and deaths compared to many other states. Of course rates of testing influence the first two, but deaths is a fairly hard number. What sources do you have that indicate Hawaii’s is actually a disastrous response? Are you referring specifically to Oahu?
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That's why I put it in quotes. There was another thread here that talked about, despite how inept our governor has been, how many lies our Department of health has told and despite how far they have tried to bury a real doctor and health specialist, our version of Fauci, lieutenant Governor Josh green, we have actually done very well (so far).

Still under 1000 confirmed cases despite three generations of morbidly obese families living under one small roof, egregious violations of common sense and a population that believes in neither germs, nor science nor vaccines. And despite hospital directors refusing to allow medical workers to wear PPE
 
EHocking said:
There are so many unknowns that it is a little difficult to come to hard and fast conclusions. ....

I used presymptomatic instead of asymptomatic as a probablility as the World Health Organisation claims that,

They do not discount the possibility, but so far they have not found evidence that it has occurred. Which is interesting.
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I've been arguing for the "we don't know" POV and how important it is to be precise. But the way one words things implies either there might be but we aren't sure, or, we have no evidence there are.

The WHO is a tad pedantic about asymptomatic vs pre-symptomatic transmission.

In a small number of case reports and studies, pre-symptomatic transmission has been documented through contact tracing efforts and enhanced investigation of clusters of confirmed cases.
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Further down, when you read the whole paragraph, it seems to lean in the probably but no proof direction.
There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission. This does not exclude the possibility that it may occur. Asymptomatic cases have been reported as part of contact tracing efforts in some countries.
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Cheetah said:
A person standing still won’t be breathing as deep/fast/hard as someone exercising and won’t expel as many viral particles.
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This I haven't seen anywhere. Amoung and spectrum of particle size for: just being still, breathing heavily, talking, screaming, singing, sneezing, coughing.
Talking may even differ between languages I guess.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The other way to look at it is that it's something I heard from a healthcare official. Looking in to it revealed nothing that I could substantiate, but since I am not a medical professional I didn't want to dismiss out of hand something that a medical professional had said just because I, as a layman, couldn't substantiate it through googling.

So instead, when it was relevant to the subject that was being discussed, I posted it along with the caveat that I was not vouching for its veracity - safe in the knowledge that I was posting to a board which is generally populated with sceptical and intelligent people who don't accept things as true just because they have heard someone random on the internet say it, and some of whom have the medical knowledge that I'm missing and will therefore be able to better evaluate the veracity or otherwise of the claim.

As you have done.
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A link might have been useful so it was clear it wasn't word of mouth which could have started anywhere.

What health care worker? I call it the ED grapevine when bad information I've had to follow up on came from some health care worker in the ED who told the EMS worker the patient had X contagious disease diagnosis.

More often than not it was bad information. IOW, health care workers are some of the worst for passing on unsupported medical information.
 
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Giordano said:
I think we are still chit-chatting because your citations address whether skin can be contaminated and transmit virus, certainly unquestionable, and resident skin microbiomes, invasive organisms, and immune responses. All interesting. Especially the limited life span of influenza on skin and formites.
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Note, the study only refers to one strain. They can differ considerably.

Giordano said:
I will need to look at that article in more detail using my proxy access to get past the paywall. Thanks for the links. But my original question of survival of viruses in general on skin vs environmental surfaces remains open. Fine. I did not invoke the possibility of an immune response so much as an inherent anti-viral chemical, etc.

I understand the concern about not passing on unsupported speculation that might place people at risk. I fail to see how speculation about anti-microbials on skin fits in that category. Any more than speculation about the effect of sunlight. I clearly indicated that I didn’t know. There is much yet to be worked out and thinking about possibilities to be tested is legit. I believe I clearly indicated in my posts that even if true it wasn’t sufficient to prevent covid-19 transmission. I never suggested people should avoid washing their hands. BTW I was not responding to Squeegee’s post but to your abrupt dismissal of it.

But again I thank you for the citations.
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Remember this started with 'gloves might spread contaminants more easily than bare hands.' Without establishing if this was even true, next came speculation as to why that might be true.

There is zero evidence it is true. One needs to establish that before going off on hypotheses as to why that might be true.


I'm sorry for being so abrupt, but passing on unsupported stuff we heard is a HUGE part of the problem of false medical beliefs. Next that would go to people thinking it was a valid claim. It's not. Look at the fingerprints your hands leave behind. Those are skin oils which carry all sorts of microorganisms with them. Synthetic gloves don't leave the same residues. It makes no physiological sense gloves transfer material more easily than hands.

I consider both of you excellent contributors to these and other discussions on this board. So don't take me in the wrong way. I'm just saying we should be careful we aren't contributing to the grapevine of medical misinformation.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
A link might have been useful so it was clear it wasn't word of mouth which could have started anywhere.
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I can't link to something that I heard on the radio that someone else was listening to in the background. I can tell you that it was a doctor, who had been called on to the programme as an expert, and that it was on Radio 4 which has a generally good reputation for factual reporting.

I didn't pay that much attention because a) I wasn't interested in listening to it, b) I was doing something else, and c) I don't wear gloves out and I'm not planning on doing so so it wasn't relevant to me.

Perhaps I should have been clearer that when I said "I have seen advice" I meant "from a credible authority figure", rather than "from some rando called Fred". But I generally post under the hopeful assumption that I've been posting here long enough that most people will not think me too gullible or too much of a moron.
 
Thanks.

marting said:
This article does a great job of explaining the value of serologic tests. It also is one of the rare pieces that describes the problem with the Stanford study. It's a really good article. The guy understands statistics.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fastest-way-end-lockdowns-004102410.html
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It may not be screamingly obvious, but Inan Dogan makes it clear that the planned serological testing in NY will provide worthwhile insights into how widespread covid-19 has become, even if the actual tests have similar shortcomings to the one used in Santa Clara County.

As I noted in an earlier post, it seems general understanding of BayesWP is rather limited.
 
marting said:
Runners are also exhaling deeply and strongly.

While there is dilution from distance, recent research has show normal breathing produces some droplets and aerosols. Talking produces about 10x more. And loud talking 100x more. Seems pretty obvious that people singing and runners would produce even more. So it's probably good advice to keep a good distance outside from joggers and people shouting.

Baseball isn't going to be the same for a while.
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Baseball players (and umpires) wore masks in 1918.
 
EHocking said:
In another thread, someone is claiming that that has been no transmission between people in an outdoor setting.
I'm awaiting the poster to cite some sources - but it is an intriguing claim.
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I'd say that kind of information is impossible to get.

When the virus is spreading fast, people will have no idea where they got it, and while the chances of catching it outside are vastly smaller than indoors, I don't see why it would be impossible.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I can't link to something that I heard on the radio that someone else was listening to in the background. I can tell you that it was a doctor, who had been called on to the programme as an expert, and that it was on Radio 4 which has a generally good reputation for factual reporting.

I didn't pay that much attention because a) I wasn't interested in listening to it, b) I was doing something else, and c) I don't wear gloves out and I'm not planning on doing so so it wasn't relevant to me.

Perhaps I should have been clearer that when I said "I have seen advice" I meant "from a credible authority figure", rather than "from some rando called Fred". But I generally post under the hopeful assumption that I've been posting here long enough that most people will not think me too gullible or too much of a moron.
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I think you've explained your post well enough. It's fine.

But on that note, which radio programs do you usually listen to? I'd still like to look into it. I tried to find anything online about it but failed.
 
pipelineaudio said:
That's why I put it in quotes. There was another thread here that talked about, despite how inept our governor has been, how many lies our Department of health has told and despite how far they have tried to bury a real doctor and health specialist, our version of Fauci, lieutenant Governor Josh green, we have actually done very well (so far).
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I think your numbers are going to hold up - a 1% increase in new cases yesterday and no sign of the rocket-powered infection rates elsewhere in USA.

And it's not population density, because Hawaii ranks 13th in USA for density and Honolulu at 5700 people/sqm isn't that far off half of Boston's, which isn't going so well.

There's something else in play. Pity nobody has any idea what it is. If NY and Boston could share your rates of infection, doctors would be going on holiday instead of calling for refrigerated trucks.
 
JeanTate said:
It may not be screamingly obvious, but Inan Dogan makes it clear that the planned serological testing in NY will provide worthwhile insights into how widespread covid-19 has become, even if the actual tests have similar shortcomings to the one used in Santa Clara County.

As I noted in an earlier post, it seems general understanding of BayesWP is rather limited.
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What disturbs me about the Stanford study is just how bad the statistics is. There's a 5% chance based on their own serologic test false positive numbers that they would have gotten similar results if every single one of the 3,330 people tested there actually had no antibody response. It's bizarre.

That said, yes, the NY study should be much more productive simply because they have a higher known PCR positive population percentage. The serological test results will be more meaningful.
 
Preliminary results announced for LA Study using same serologic test as the Standford Santa Clara study. 863 people tested in La County, presumably randomly selected.

4.1% tested positive, 6% of men, 2% of women. That's about 320,000 LA residents and 40 times larger than confirmed cases.

Because of the larger percentage that tested positive, issues of false positive tests are minimal.

Assuming that those infected are immune, which is probable but not certain, it's probable that the overall population death rate would be < .1% and possibly significantly less and that assumes the disease was allowed to run its course w/o any social distancing.

Yet we have the cluster cases where large percentages became symptomatic with a fairly high death rate. How to explain?

Could it be the result of how much virus people were exposed to initially? Perhaps low levels produce a reaction but not observable disease. If that is so and if they do confer immunity then things are looking up big time with worst case numbers well below the 1919 flu.
 
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